Sermon: God’s Absence
Scripture: 1 Kings 21: 1-16
Preached: January 26, 2003 Woodlawn
Rev. Mike Abma
AHAB and NABOTH
This story in 1 Kings 21 catches us by surprise. For a number of chapters the rule of King Ahab has been filled with epic struggles:
Ahab versus the prophet Elijah
Ahab versus the Aramean King Ben-hadad
But tucked into these epics of a king versus a prophet, and a king versus other kings, there is this little story of a king versus a private citizen, a monarch versus a farmer.
It all starts innocently enough. King Ahab is spending some down-time in his summer palace in the city of Jezreel. Spring is in the air. He begins to think of renovations and additions he can make to the place. He takes a stroll into Naboth’s vineyard which is just next door. But it is hard for him to see the vineyard. All he can see are his plans, his dreams, his goals. A firm believer that everyone has his price, Ahab makes Naboth an offer – a bigger, better vineyard on the other side of town.
Naboth is quiet.
“Well, if that isn’t enough, maybe simply cash, I’ll pay you what you think its worth.” Ahab offers.
But Naboth refuses to sell and Ahab starts to pout.
The Bible is generally rather reserved about giving us the emotional details of a story, but here we are told outright that Ahab gets sullen and angry. We are told he sulks and goes up to his room without dinner. Clearly he is coveting this vineyard of Naboth but he isn’t quite sure what to do with all these covetous feelings.
JEZEBEL
Enter Jezebel, a foreign queen, a Baal-loving queen, who is portrayed again and again as the one who pushes Ahab’s reign further and further into the realm of idolatry.
Jezebel is not hampered by traditions of inheritance.
Jezebel is not hampered by what the Ten Commandments say.
For Jezebel, the matter is clear.
Ahab is king. Ahab wants vineyard. Therefore Ahab shall have vineyard.
Jezebel is portrayed as wicked but not stupid. She knows it would never fly to order a company of soldiers to Naboth’s door to arrest him, to expropriate his property, to kill him on the spot. Even she knows that evil must always disguise itself as goodness or even justice. So she devises a wicked plot. She sends a letter to the city of Jezreel, to the leaders in that city, the elders and nobles:
* Arrange a religious holiday, a day of fasting and repentance as if some danger were on the horizon.
* Then seat Naboth in a conspicuous place where most people would be able to see him.
* then seat him between two known scoundrels who will do anything for the right price. Have them testify that Naboth both cursed God and cursed the King. In other words, charge him with both blasphemy and treason.
Notice that not only must evil disguise itself as doing the right thing.
Evil also needs the cooperation of a lot of other people. Jezebel needed the cooperation of the nobility in the city. She needed the cooperation of reliable scoundrels who could make a convincing case. She even needed the cooperation of the whole city to not recognize the horrendous deception of this crime.
All goes according to plan.
What we don’t pick up clearly from the text is that when they dragged Naboth out of the city, they in all likelihood dragged him to his own vineyard and killed him on the very property he had hung his hope on.
Not only that, but it wasn’t only Naboth that died that day.
2 Kings 9:26 makes it clear that Naboth and his sons, meaning his family, were put to death that day.
Naboth was left with no one to carry on the family name and tradition.
And the vineyard?
Well, the property of all executed criminals became the property of the crown. All Ahab had to do was show up and claim it.
What we may first be tempted to do is refuse to accept the horribleness of this story. What we want to do is reach into the story and try save Naboth, to swoop in – Harry Potter style — with our flying car to rescue Naboth from the flying stones.
What we want to do is enter a time machine and go back in time to tell all those people in the city of Jezreel that the Queen is just a …just a wicked witch.
But there is nothing we can do to change the story.
And so we have to slowly accept it.
And as we slowly accept it, we look for people to blame.
BLAME THE VICTIM
We look at Naboth — poor, foolish Naboth. Why didn’t Naboth sell? He was being offered a good price. With a little negotiating, he could have made a small fortune on the place. He could have avoided all this future trouble.
That is part of our human nature, isn’t it?
To blame the victim first.
To wish the victim had acted differently.
If only he had let Ahab have his way.
If only … if only Naboth had taken the money and run.
But Naboth isn’t to blame. In fact, Naboth is the clear hero of this story. Naboth remembers what covenant means. Ahab has forgotten, but Naboth remembers. For Naboth, the vineyard isn’t simply a piece of property he happens to own. For Naboth, this vineyard had been in his family for perhaps 400 years. It had belonged to his father, and his grandfather, and his greatgrandfather … To sell the vineyard would be sacrilege. To sell the vineyard would go against what God had said in Leviticus 25 about never selling your ancestral land. That is the deep reason Naboth does not sell and he is right not to sell.
But there is also some code language in this story we should be aware of.
It is no coincidence that Naboth owns a vineyard and that Ahab wants to turn it into a vegetable garden. Throughout the Old Testament, Israel is referred to as a vineyard.
A vegetable garden, on the other hand, brings back memories to Egypt.
So turning a vineyard into a vegetable garden is code language for Israel going back to Egypt, back to slavery, back to the land of idols.
Clearly Naboth is not the one to blame.
He is the one who keeps covenant.
He is the one who lives according to God’s laws.
BLAME THE PERPETRATORS
Ahab and his wife Jezebel are a different story.
We can rightly become angry with them.
They come close to breaking every commandment in the book.
Coveting, lying, dishonoring the name of God, murdering, stealing.
How could they do what they did?
Did they have a soul, a conscience, a pulse?
BLAME GOD
But finally, after facing the horror of Jezebel’s crime and Ahab’s complicity, there is a part of us that is angry at God. Here is Naboth, an honest, faithful, God-fearing man. He and his sons die a horrible death. And there is no one to help him… no one.
God is eerily absent. Not a whisper of warning to Naboth. Not a finger of help. God is absent and silent. Couldn’t God have prevented this from happening?
That is one of the reasons why stories like this story of Naboth are so disturbing ….they hit close to home.
We have all heard, we have all read, we all know tragic stories of
children being killed by their parents
of younger siblings being killed by older siblings
of people who are bludgeoned to death by complete strangers.
Why?
We don’t come to church because God has been talking to us all week.
We come to church with our burdens, our questions, our troubles, and we come wondering why God isn’t answering them. We come knowing how much hurt and violence and injustice there is in the world, and we can’t figure out how God can be in charge, how this world belongs to him. So we come to church, sometimes sullen and angry because God seems so silent, so absent.
PART II THE END OF THE STORY
This story could easily have ended at verse 16.
Naboth is dead. Nothing anybody can do about it.
It’s over. Done. That’s it.
Life stinks.
That is where so many of us feel stuck…at the end of verse 16 … at a dead-end.
It’s over – I didn’t get into that college.
It’s over – I’ve got cancer.
It’s over – after 21 years with the company I’m laid off.
It’s over – the divorce became final last week.
It’s over – we buried our child last month.
Somehow it is always when everything seems lost and over that the Lord arrives with something to say.
Of course, it takes a moment for our sullen anger to recede a little.
“Sort of late, aren’t you God?” we think.
“Could have used you a bit earlier, eh God?” we remark.
“Well, better late than never” we concede, “Time for this prophet to do his stuff.”
We remember that Elijah was the prophet who called down fire from heaven to consume an altar drenched in water. We have this hope inside of us that he will call down some fire from heaven to consume this king drenched in guilt – we admit it, we’ve watched too many Terminator type movies.
At first things look promising. It looks as if Ahab is going to get what he deserves. Elijah delivers a withering judgment: “Dogs will lick up Ahab’s blood when he dies.”
Then Elijah goes on. Not only would Ahab die but Ahab’s progeny, his future, the dynasty he dreamed of, would all be wiped out. Why? Because what Ahab has done has so thoroughly disgusted God,
has so provoked God to anger,
has led the vineyard of Israel so far into darkness,
that God knew the line of Ahab and Jezebel had to be totally uprooted and consumed.
But then something happens that catches us off-guard.
We read that when Ahab heard these words of judgment, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted.
He deserved to die on the spot …. And here he is sulking in bed again and refusing to eat.
This is perhaps the hardest part of the story to swallow.
Ahab’s repentance is enough to make you sick.
But it is enough to make God stop, slow down.
Grace is given to Ahab for a time.
Mercy is given for a few more moments.
The full extent of the prophecy against Ahab is not realized until Ahab’s sons Ahaziah and Jehoram. In other words, God restrains his anger. He delays his wrath.
Why does God do that?
Naboth deserves mercy and gets punishment.
Ahab deserves punishment and gets mercy.
Why are things so mixed up?
Why are things so up-side-down?
Because that is the way of the gospel.
Think about it:
Does the story of Naboth remind you of anyone else:
Framed by the elders and nobility of Israel;
false witnesses testifying against him;
charged with treason and blasphemy;
Led to a spot just outside the city to die a criminal’s death.
And does the story of Ahab and Jezebel remind you of anyone else:
Coveting something they should not have;
Breaking God’s commandments and seeming to get away with it;
Trying to cover up their wrong.
Jesus deserved mercy and got punishment
We, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve,
deserve punishment and get mercy.
Amen
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